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Scooter

May 26th, 2008 · dave

Tina pointed out to me the other day that I haven’t ever made a post about my new scooter.

Scooter at store before purchase

I typically drive a dark blue 1996 Ford Explorer XLT. It gets about 15 MPG and has a trailer hitch. I love SUVs in that I can haul people, things, and trailers. Gas prices, though, have caused me to rethink my love.

A couple of months ago, one of my co-workers (Adam) at DuPont was pointing out that he saw some scooters on KSL.com for $950. The company was based out of Roy and sells various kinds of boy-toys, among them, scooters.

Other conversations led us to discuss how other companies sell scooters for 2-3 thousand dollars, and so comparatively, a scooter at this price is outstanding. The thing only needs to last one-third to one-half as long as the expensive models to justify the cost.

Also, regarding justification, I cranked out the math. If the scooter gets 80 MPG, gas costs $4 per gallon, I drive 300 miles a month, wear & tear on the Explorer + gas is roughly $0.50 per mile, etc. I would need to drive the scooter for 8 months for it to pay for itself in cost savings (That included tax, title, and registration). If I drove more, it would pay for itself even quicker (5 months if I drove 500 miles per month). Fortunately, I only live 1.3 miles from work and don’t drive much anyway.

I am now the proud owner of a 2006 SunL SL150-12B. It is a 150cc, 4 stroke, air-cooled engine. Max speed is 59 mph, although I’ve only seen it do 52. I imagine 59 would be downhill with a tail wind.

Bridget loves putting on my helmet. I used my old Arctic Cat helmet since I don’t own a snowmobile anymore (that’s a post for another day) and the colors match. Here’s some pictures of her wearing it.

Bridget wearing Dave's Helmet

Bridget wearing Dave's Helmet

Note the gang sign.

Bridget wearing Dave's Helmet

I wouldn’t typically have gotten this bright green color. I personally think that scooter drivers look like fags driving around. Since I don’t have to defend my manliness and want very badly to be seen by other drivers, I was okay getting something so bright. People can think what they may, I’m thinking 80 MPG as I drive around. It just makes me want to groan, “Man! 5 dollars to fill up my tank this time! This is out of control!” I’ll do it overly loud, too, so that the husky, greasy guy in the wife-beater filling up his gas-guzzler can hear me (and hopefully not kill me).

Please don’t run me over if you see me.

Dave on scooter.

Did I mention Tina is also working on getting her motorcycle license? I wonder if anybody will care about the carseat strapped to the back…

Tina & Bridget on Scooter

Please don’t run Tina over, either.

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Father & Son’s

May 25th, 2008 · bridget, dave, family

Friday Night/Saturday morning was the West Point, Utah Stake’s annual Father & Son’s outing at Camp Woodland. Tina’s parents are part of that stake and her father, R.J., annually invites his son and son’s-in-law. This year, I decided to bring Bridget with me.

Bridget at Father & Son's Outing

Bridget at Father & Son's Outing

Now, I don’t need people telling me that Bridget is not my son (perhaps you should tell her that — after watching her buddy Josh stand up to go #1, she is convinced she is a boy so that she can, too).

Side note… Whenever there is an activity of this nature, there is the odd family that brings a child of the wrong gender. The instance is typically few and far between, but it happens. Well, year after year, a particular family in the stake (with a number of female progeny) was bringing his girls to the father and sons. Year after year, the 2-year-old that got brought turns into the 5-year-old, then the 7-year-old, then the 12-year-old, etc. Well, last year, it got out of hand. This guy with upwards of 4-5 girls ages 3 – 15 and his wife went to the father and son’s outing. You can see how the inappropriateness of a 15-year-old girl at an outing like this would be too much (especially since they typically open one bathroom for use). The stake decided to shut this guy down, except in a non-rude way, by telling all families in the stake that absolutely no females would be allowed to come… Then, I show up with Bridget. She was the only girl with the hundreds of father-son families at the entire camp. We felt a little out of place. Since everybody knew the reasoning behind the message, they really didn’t care about Bridget and were all really nice to her.

We had been getting Bridget excited about going camping for about a week. She was only mildly upset that Mommy would be staying home. To defer any upset-ness, I would name the family members that would be showing up:

Dave: “Grandpa will be there…”

Bridget: “And Grandma?”

Dave: “No, Grandma will be staying home. But Uncle Donny will be there…”

Bridget: “And Aunt Hollie?”

Dave: “No, not this time. Uncle Barry will be there, though…”

Bridget: “And Teyler?”

Dave: “No, but Uncle Barry might bring Ethan…”

Bridget: “I think Uncle Barry will bring Teyler, too!”

Dave: “Well, we’ll see…”

Mendenhall Representation at Father & Son's Outing

Bridget sure had a ball playing with her cousin, Ethan.

Bridget playing with Ethan at Father & Son's Outing

Here’s us eating our hoagie dinner.

Dave & Bridget's Dinner at Father & Son's Outing

If I had a shirt commemorating Hurley from Lost, I’d wear it everywhere!!!

Dinner at Father & Son's Outing

I never realized that putting hands in pockets to keep warm was something I’d have to teach my kid. As the day turned to night, the temperature began to come down and it got quite chilly. I could see that Bridget’s hands were getting cold, but she wasn’t putting them in her pockets. I showed her that if she did, her hands would stay warm. We then walked around and pointed out all of the boys with their hands in their pockets keeping warm. Bridget did likewise the rest of the evening.

Bridget Hands in pockets at Father & Son's Outing

Bridget at Father & Son's Outing

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Getting Bigger…

May 24th, 2008 · bridget

[Note: Tina here. Dave and Bridget are off camping so I get to come out of hiding to do a quick post. Don’t get too excited though… Dave has a few more posts up his sleeves that he’ll be sharing with you all soon. I get a few more days off 🙂 – Not that you really missed me all that much, Dave’s been doing a great job keeping you all entertained.]

Bridget is getting bigger by the day.

She recently grew out of most of her clothes and all of her shoes. We had to get all kinds of stuff in bigger sizes all at once.

She’s also growing a lot developmentally. She tells us more elaborate stories and she’s much better at telling us about past events. She’s taken a greater interest in movies with more complicated themes – her favorites right now are Snow White and Beauty and the Beast.

She’s learning to whistle (I can’t even do that). Dave is teaching her.

Oh, and she’s getting taller…

With all this growing and getting bigger stuff she is also trying to be a lot more independent. Which is great… sometimes. The phrase we always hear is “No, let me do it” usually followed by a lot of whining and crying if we happen to complete the said task before she gets there. Lovely, isn’t it.

No, seriously, we are excited to see her grow and we love it each time she does something new. Its just amazing how much longer everything takes when Bridget wants to help (or do it herself). I was emptying the dishwasher the other day and she insisted that she could do the silverware. . . It took about 45 minutes to finally get it emptied.

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GUMMIBÄR

May 23rd, 2008 · bridget, techno geeks

Still Dave… Not enough people picketing in front of our house that they want Tina back…

Two videos for you today. The first is Bridget asking us to click on YouTube so that she can see the Gummy Bear movie:

The next video is the “Gummy Bear” movie she was referring to:

What do you think?

Awhile ago, Sandra posted the YouTube video called, “Alien Song.” Occasionally, Bridget asks to see that video so we pull it up on YouTube. Bridget is savvy enough with the mouse to know that if she clicks on the related videos, she can watch another show. Well, apparently, she went from one video to the next until she ended up here. Now, she asks to see the “Gummy Bear” movie all the time.

What 2 1/2 year old knows how to drive the mouse and click?

Oh, FYI the GUMMIBÄR has a website: http://www.gummibar.net

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A Grown Man’s Hobby

May 22nd, 2008 · dave, family, techno geeks

So there we were, two grown men, crossing a wooden plank in search of treasure. Our location (in normal person terms) would have been about 1500 North and 200 West, west side of the road where a wooden footbridge crosses the canal. In our language, we were at N 41° 45′ 34.6788″ W 111° 50′ 21.9012″ (pronounced “North 41 degrees 45 minutes 34 point 6788 seconds by West 111 degrees 50 minutes 21 point 9012 seconds). I hollered over to the other guy (somebody I have never met before and only know now as “6coondawgs”) that I found it. He quickly came over while I opened the treasure — a tupperware container filled with a notebook, a pencil, and dollar-store junk.

Why was such a find so exciting for us? A philosopher might say, “the thrill is in the hunt.” Much like pirates of old looking for buried treasure, we are 21st century pirates using 21st century maps hunting for buried treasure — except our treasure isn’t so much buried. The title of our game — geocaching.

Geocaching.com defines geocaching as follows:

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users…The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

For the non techno-geeks of the world, GPS stands for Global Positioning System which Wikipedia defines as such:

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Utilizing a constellation of at least 24 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, the system enables a GPS receiver to determine its location, speed, direction, and time.

A typical GPS receiver calculates its position using the signals from four or more GPS satellites. Four satellites are needed since the process needs a very accurate local time, more accurate than any normal clock can provide, so the receiver internally solves for time as well as position. In other words, the receiver uses four measurements to solve for four variables: x, y, z, and t. These values are then turned into more user-friendly forms, such as latitude/longitude or location on a map, then displayed to the user.

In short, I have this cool toy that tells me precisely and accurately what location and elevation I am currently located. I can program into the device precise locations of “buried treasure” and the GPS will give me turn-by-turn directions (in the case of street maps) or step-by-step navigation (in the case of walking, hiking, or biking) to the destination.

Enthusiasts throughout the world are working together to make this a fun game. Geocaching.com is the official home of such a hobby. Since the precise locations are known, geocaching.com can overlay the locations of the caches over a map of the area using tools like Google Earth. See Cache Valley screenshot below (with geocaches overlayed accordingly):

Cache Valley GeoCache Map

As you see in the map above, some of the locations have smily faces for the symbol. These are the locations that I have successfully discovered. I signed the log in the geocache and recorded the find at the website.

I actually introduced my dad to geocaching while we were on our vacation to California last week. Here are some pictures commemorating our finds:



For those that decide to join our grown man’s hobby, where we track through urban areas looking for hidden treasure chests of junk, you can create a free account at geocaching.com. FYI, our GPS unit is a Garmin Nuvi 200. We actually bought this particular model for navigating roads. The GPS functionality is an added bonus. You can get GPS devices that are better qualified for geocaching than ours. 🙂

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Wind Caves

May 21st, 2008 · a day in the life, bridget, dave, family, tina

In support of Tina’s brief siesta from blogging, I have decided to keep you all somewhat entertained by sharing with you some information of our Monday’s FHE activity. (Yes, this is Dave. Tina is on a blog vacation. The previous post called Photosynth/Seadragon was also from me. I assure you, however, that any messages left in post comments saying that you want Tina’s return will certainly go unread and never make it back to Tina’s watchful eyes.)

Bridget is now 2 1/2 years old, officially this week. She is now old enough, we think, to be participating in more outdoor activities. She demonstrated during our Disneyland Vacation that she has matured quite a bit and really has quite a positive attitude. I will be bringing her to my father-in-law’s father-and-son’s outing this coming Friday/Saturday. (No, I don’t need anybody pointing out to me that Bridget is not my son.) To prepare for this campout, we decided to hit the wind caves.

I got off work pretty darn close to 5:00 PM on Monday. Didn’t make it to the trailhead until 7 (since we still struggle getting out the door — sandwiches to be made, backpacks to find, water bottles to fill, etc.). The more astute of Tina’s blogging readership might realize that if it takes a normal hiker an hour to the top and an hour to the bottom then it would take an out of shape husband, a hot wife, and a 2 1/2 year old kid more like 2 hours to get to the top. These astute readers might also point out that the sun goes down in the canyon much sooner than on the Valley floor and that we would be standing in the dark if and when we ever made it to the top.



Well, Bridget did fabulous. She made it a good 2/3 the way on foot, after which we sat down to eat our dinner — homemade hoagie sandwiches, pringles, trail mix, and flavored water. Tina wanted to give up, but after seeing one college singles ward after another pass us on the trail we felt foolish turning back, notwithstanding it getting progressively darker and darker. Yes, we were flashlight-less.

The final 1/3 of the trail was composed of us asking each hiking group that passed us (then on their way down) how much longer we had until we got to the top. Each blessed us with words of encouragement and a funny laugh that made us feel like losers for considering turning back. Again, note that we were flashlight-less.

Well, we made it to the windcaves just as the last singles ward college couple was concluding watching their romantic sunset and the three of us were left alone, in the dark, at the top of the mountain. Again, I remind you, we did not have a flashlight.


In the picture above, Bridget had just learned a valuable lesson (which, unfortunately, I assume she’ll learn over and over throughout her lifetime). The lesson was that sometimes her parents might be right. The base floor at the windcaves is just barely angled enough and just loose enough dirt to allow an unwary 2 1/2 year old a nice slip/trip/fall followed by a butt-ride down the side of the mountain. I saw it coming and so was able to make it to the downhill side of the kid prior to her making it very far.

Depressed that we hadn’t the forethought to bring a flashlight, we finished off our dinner while sitting on the rock in the cave.



Since it wasn’t getting any lighter, we started down the mountain. This time, we could barely make out the footing on the trail: rocks, tree branches, etc. I ended up carrying Bridget on my shoulders the whole way down. Since we couldn’t see (remember, no flashlight), we ended up taking what we thought was a shortcut (what was I thinking?!?) and got ourselves quite significantly lost. It is a good thing that Bridget knows what Lost means (see prior post).

To make a long story short, we ended up scaling down sections of the mountain (in the dark) passing Bridget back and forth. About 2/3 the way down the mountain (once we finally found the trail), we saw several iterations of single, college student wards that were doing the Wind Caves as a night hike (yes, they were bright enough to bring flashlights). When one group felt sympathy for our bumbling through the dark and offered us one of their flashlights, Tina had the great idea to use the LCD display from the GPS that we had brought with us as a light.

We must have been kind of a funny sight: Tina holding down a 3″x5″ LCD GPS to the trail floor, me on her heals carrying a backpack on my back and a dead-tired 2 1/2 year old little girl on my shoulders.

At one point, I felt Bridget’s body start go quite limp. Not wanting her to fall asleep (in the dark on my shoulders) I decided to start up a conversation. I asked her what she was thinking about. Her response? “I’m just thinking about my bed.” Poor kid.

Alas, by 10:00 PM-ish, we finally made it to the bottom of the trail, and infinitely more importantly, to the car. It was kind of funny when we made it to the car, Tina used the remote to unlock the doors, which also happened to turn on the dome light. Bridget saw her carseat through the window and in the most exasperated of voices exclaimed, “My Car Seat!” She was so tired, but such a little angel the whole time. She didn’t complain once.

If nobody complains loudly enough that you want Tina back, I’ll see you all tomorrow when I post about geocaching!

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Photosynth/Seadragon

May 18th, 2008 · dave, techno geeks

Okay this is a seriously geeky post. The technology is so wonderful, though, that I had to share.

Watch this video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129.

Can you imagine, using the pictures that I took on our family trip to Disneyland this past week and dropping them into this worldwide picture collection? The concept of browsing through such an integrated virtual environment is astounding.

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Foam Beads

May 17th, 2008 · bridget

Two weeks ago, Bridget and I were at the dollar store and I let her choose one toy.

She picked these foam beads that you string. She’s strung things before… wooden beads, and fruit loops… but I guess that foam beads were a fun new challenge and provided just enough variation to re-peak her interest.

She sat at the table for about half an hour stringing her beads.

Toward the end I had to help her a bit, but she was still pretty pleased with her completed necklace.

Apparently though, it looked a little bit like the fruit loop necklace she made before… or maybe it looked like a candy necklace… because she asked me if she could eat it. At least she asked.

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Music Videos: Hold On

May 16th, 2008 · college life, music videos, the hottest girls at USU

This next music video was shot by one of my roommates during a trip down to St. George. Several of my roommates went with a few of our friends. I didn’t make it on that trip, but I love the video because its totally random and spontaneous. Its fun that there are so many people participating too.

At the end of the school year, when we started parting ways as roommates I used clips from that video and mixed them with photos from our time as roommates. It was probably one of my favorite little videos to edit, just because it had so many memories associated with it. I can’t find it though. 🙁 Hopefully by the time I do my next music videos post… worse case I could pull it from the VHS tape where it was dubbed. But I’d rather find a digital copy. Don’t hold your breath.

Anyway, I really like this one.

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Team Fortress 2

May 15th, 2008 · dave, techno geeks

Dave here.

Awhile back, I purchased a collection of games by Valve. The collection of games included: Portal, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and Team Fortress 2. I posted previously about Portal (with a promise to post again about the game’s ending). This post is about Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2 is an online multiplayer “first person shooter.” Wikipedia says this:

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by the Valve Corporation. A sequel to Valve’s previous Team Fortress Classic, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on 10 October 2007 for Windows and the Xbox 360. The game itself revolves around two teams, each with access to nine distinct characters, battling in a variety of game modes set in evil genius environments. Wikipedia Article found here.

The art in the game was designed as a cross between Normal Rockwell’s work and Pixar’s, “The Incredibles.” Check out the YouTube video that describes each of the player types:

Here’s the follow-up trailer that actually shows what gameplay is like:

(There are severely better quality videos located at Valve’s site here.)

Also, while you are at Valve’s site, watch each of the “Meet the…” videos. I’ll include the youtube version of the “Meet the Heavy” so that you can get a taste.

I particularly love that each of the classes have very distinct personalities and phrases that they say during gameplay. Okay, okay, one last video that shows some of these phrases. (Can you tell I love playing this game?)

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